U.S. Department of Labor publishes agenda for September 14-15 joint hearing on lifetime income options for retirement plans

Washington— Today the U. S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released the agenda for the upcoming joint hearing with the Department of the Treasury on lifetime income options for retirement plans. Accompanying the agenda are copies of the witnesses’ requests to testify and testimony outlines. The hearing begins at 9:00 a.m. (EST) on September 14 and 15, 2010. The hearing will be held in the Labor Department’s main auditorium, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C.

The agenda and requests to testify are available on EBSA’s Web site at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa. Individuals planning to attend the hearing should provide contact information by email to e-ORI@dol.gov and arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the start of the hearing to expedite entrance into the building.

U.S. Department of Labor news releases are accessible on the Department’s Newsroom page. The information in this news release will be made available in alternate format (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COAST office upon request. Please specify which news release when placing your request at 202.693.7828 202.693.7828 TTY 202.693.7755 202.693.7755 The Labor Department is committed to providing America’s employers and employees with easy access to understandable information on how to comply with its laws and regulations. For more information, please visit the Department’s Compliance Assistance page.

Having spent the last ten years, minimally, spending without conscience or concern, the federal government has hit the wall; no one wants to buy our Treasury bonds used to finance the national debt. As one bill after another comes out of congress giving the government and its corporate buddies control of everything from our water and land to our food and health, it comes as no surprise that the final act of redistribution of wealth to the already wealthy, is, the forced conversion of private retirement investments into nationalized retirement accounts which are nothing less than the confiscation of wealth from the middle class to pay the debt run up by one congress and president after another.

S 3760, introduced August 5 by Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) would require that employers of workers currently not covered by any retirement program pay 3% of compensation into mandatory, automatic IRA accounts. That would also have the effect of increasing the assets that the US government could then seize.

This is the Republican privatization of Social Security scheme trotted out during the Bush years, retooled and now focused on the private savings of the middle class. Now, instead of forcing you to invest any portion of your Social Security retirement in the stock market, a move which would have seen one of the greatest thefts of wealth and its redistribution to the crooks and thieves on Wall Street had they been successful, the Democrat faction has taken up the cause of confiscating private investment accounts to fund the rampant overspending of government using retirement savings of those who were able to contribute to 401(k) and IRA accounts and who have savings in private pension funds. More